Gen2: 7 And the LORD God formed (to form, fashion, shape, mold, produce, create, The primary meaning of the word is derived from the idea of cutting or framing) man of the dust of the ground (earth), and breathed into his nostrils the breath (nešāmāh, spirit, breath, the source of life, center of life, life force) of life ; and man became a living soul (nepesh-soul- their distinctive individuality)
When God made the first Adam, he made his body out of the dust of the earth, and then breathed in his nostrils the breath of life, and he became a living soul; Adam then became the first of an entire race of souls.
This breath of life is man’s spirit, the source of man’s life. This breath of life comes out of God. God breathed our spirit into our body and our soul was created and we became a living soul.
Our spirit came out of the Spirit of God, our spirit came out of eternity, our spirit came out of the heart of God, and it existed before it entered the body God had formed. We were in God; we were in Christ before the foundation or the forming of the natural creation.
God desired us, he thought about us, he imagined us, he saw us, he knew us, he wrote a book or scroll about us, and we were in agreement with it, before we were born a human being.
The word life in the expression “breath of life” is chay in the Hebrew which is plural in number. God’s breathing produces two lives- a spiritual one and a soulish one. When God’s breath of life entered the human body, it became the spirit. At the same time, when the spirit came into contact with the body, it produced the soul.
Our spirit preexisted in God, when he breathed it into the body it took on another dimension, a level of existence and consciousness with the capacity to grow and develop in God through partaking of the way of the tree of life, which is called the ancient path.
When the spirit entered the body the soul was produced. The body is organic (consisting of organs). The life or soul of the body is in the blood.
Gen9:4 But flesh with the life (nepesh-soul) thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.
Our soul is directly related to the blood stream which gives the organs of the body life. So our soul is directly related to our body. I call it the soul-flesh.
Our soul has to be saved, to be transformed- to be enabled to live by a new life force, the life of the Spirit. It has to come under the rule of our spirit, through the flow of God’s life in it. Our soul has to be delivered, from the unrestrained desires of our body, so that it becomes a servant of our spirit and not our body.
The best definition of the flesh is that union of soul and body that acts independently of God. This is the pathway of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The flesh is not just all the negative things in our life but also our own natural abilities. The flesh tries to serve God; we do things in our own strength and abilities instead of learning how to wait upon the lord to receive his revelation, nature, strength and abilities.
Our spirit is directly related to our breath. Our spirit is also directly related to our voice. In the awakening of our spirit, our spirit is directly related to our will. There is now a yes in our spirit to God. Our spirit wills, it desires the things of God, but up until this time our soul had been in charge, it has been trained through practice to do its own thing.
Our spirit has everything that our soul and body has. It has eyes and ears; it has a mouth, mind, will and emotions.
Our spirit is interrelated to Gods Spirit. He that is joined to the lord is one spirit. The word joined in the Greek is the present passive/middle participle, which refers to continuous action by our yielding to the moving of God’s Spirit in us. The life of God in His Spirit flows into our spirit as we learn how to see, how to hear and how to feel Him. This all happens as we learn how to yield to the inflow of His Spirit.
Our spirit is dependant and affected by the inflow of God’s eternal life in it. The will, mind and emotions of God flow into our spirit and we learn how to think and feel and act like God.
The strongest part of our spirit is the will, it naturally desires to do God’s will- there is a yes in our spirit to the will of God. But our spirit has to tune into God’s Spirit in order for us to perceive with the mind of Christ. Our Spirit has to tune into God’s Spirit in order to feel or be moved by Gods emotions. Our spirit has to be connecting to God’s Spirit in order for the mind and emotions of our spirit to be functioning properly. Otherwise the mind and the emotions of our spirit will be swallowed up in the mind and emotions of our soul.
Our soul is a result of the spirit entering into the body. When the spirit leaves the body, the life or soul in the blood also leaves.
When our spirit is joined to the Lord, it is one spirit with the Lord; it is all of one spirit. But our soul is our distinct individuality, which must be swallowed up in the life of the Lord, so that we no longer act independently of Him.
Our soul and spirit are interrelated. Our soul is to reflect who we are in our spirit. The soul is our distinct individuality. The soul is our own personality, it is our self-consciousness. It is our natural created life; it is what makes us human. Our self dwells in the soul.
Jesus is the living word, until the word of God is quickened in our spirit we have no fellowship with God, He is still outside of our spirit. Our spirit is like a womb and Gods word must be quickened in it. Our spirit has to become alive unto God, so that our spirit becomes conscious of God, it is the light of His life- our spirit is the lamp of the Lord.
When Jesus was raised from the dead he became the second man, who becomes the head of a whole race of life-giving spirits. When we open our spirit to the Lordship of Jesus, our spirit becomes alive to God through the inflowing of His Spirit.
Our spirit is the part of us that is God conscious. Before we open our spirit to the Lord it is not alive unto God in the sense of where it is communing with Him. Our spirit still functioned, but was not totally influenced by the life of God.
Once our spirit is joined to the lord, through contact with the Spirit of God, it partakes of the eternal life of God-His uncreated life. When our spirit is in contact with the life of God-(His Spirit), then we can sense the life of God active in us.
So when we talk about the spirit we are basically talking about the divine nature or the life of God. And when we are talking about the soul, we are talking about our natural created life or human nature.
When we are talking about our spirit we are talking about our innermost being in which God desires to live. And when we are talking about our soul we are talking about our self. Self dwells in our soul. And God dwells in our spirit.
Our spirit has a consciousness and our soul has a consciousness. When our spirit is joined to the Lord it has an anointing or ability or a discernment or witness from God to what is true. Our spirit intuitively knows things that our soul might not fully understand yet.
Our spirit knows and our mind understands. We can believe things in our mind, but until we experience them in our spirit that knowledge doesn’t change us. We think we know something or understand something and it tends to puff us up and we become self reliant, instead of God reliant.
The knowledge in our mind about the word of God must become alive in our spirit. Then we now know by experience, that which just use to be a thought in our mind.
The spirit represents the innermost part of us, it has to do with our intentions and motivations and attitudes.
When our spirit comes alive our soul immediately begins to participate in salvation. It is our soul life that is being saved, as the life of God in our spirit is growing and our soul comes into submission to it.
The soul represents the function of our mind and emotions, when our physical eyes see something our soul has to reach out and interpret it.
Our soul becomes kind of a switchboard to interpret what the physical senses receive, as well as what our spirit senses receive.
Before our spirit is joined to the Lord, our soul interprets basically what the physical senses receive and reacts to it emotionally. The soul is basically influenced by the things of this natural life.
The soul has been trained from the outside in, and the things of this natural life, trigger thought patterns in our brain which flow into our soul. Self-dwells in the soul and is influence by the things of this natural life and makes decisions based on self until it is transformed where the eternal life of God flows through our spirit into our soul and our soul comes into submission to it.
The soul also reaches into the realm of our spirit and draws from that. When someone persecutes us and says something evil about us, if the flesh is operative, it comes up to the soul, which reacts by getting mad and wanting to fight back. But if the spirit is in control, the soul responds to the intuition in our spirit. Then we intuitively know how to handle situations. We have to constantly tune into God, and not yield to the flesh with its affections and lusts.
Once our spirit becomes alive unto God it reaches out and tunes into God and then our soul interprets what it is receiving. The blessing reaches the soul level through our spirit. We approach God through a spirit that is alive to him and as our spirit makes contact our soul responds.
We need to understand that we are a three part being, but these parts are not completely separate. These parts are interrelated. Our spirit affects our soul which affects our body. And our body affects our soul which affects our spirit.
When God reaches our spirit, we are not always alive to it. God deals with a person’s spirit, when they are not even conscious of what is happening to it. But after a couple days it reaches through and it reaches the conscious mind.
We always obtain the victory first in our spirit, we always receive the answer first in our spirit and then our soul becomes aware of it later.
What we need to be focused on and be aware of is our spirit, so that which the Holy Spirit brings to our spirit reaches the level of our understanding almost immediately.
When the life of God is flowing through our spirit our soul will agree with it, and express God’s life.
When our spirit is in constant contact with God’s Spirit we become a life giving spirit and the life of God flows out and touches others, who’s spirits are open to God.
As we learn how to walk in the Spirit, and worship God in our spirit, it can begin to have a very profound effect upon our physical body.
Our five physical senses have been limited to operate on one plane. Therefore we do not see God or the angels. But the more spiritual we become, the more of an ability or a capacity can be given to us to break through the limitation of the natural senses so that we can come into an awareness of the spirit realm.
As we become more and more aware of our spirit and learn how to exercise it in its growth and development in God, once it becomes fully developed it will be just like Jesus Christ in Spirit.
Jesus said I am the resurrection and the life, as we fully yield to His Spirit we are yielding to the resurrection and the Life. We do not yet have the real hope of resurrection life that we should have.
The resurrection takes place first in our spirit, and then our soul comes alive unto God and then our body comes alive unto God.